Why mediate a lawsuit or other dispute?
If you are involved in a dispute about a contract, or an injury, or how a neighbour is treating you, or even a construction problem, you have an alternative to going to trial.
You have the right in most British Columbia lawsuits to make the other side attend a mediation. Even where you don't, you may want them to mediate with you. Or, it may be that they are asking (or requiring) you to attend.
Our law gives this right because research shows that most cases settle at mediation, even when people are made to go.
People are often much more satisfied when they constructed the settlement, instead of having a judge or arbitrator decide for them.
What happens at a mediation?
Parties are guided through a negotiation exercise. This starts with an outline of what to expect, an exchange of issues and information about the issues, an assessment of the risks and opportunities, exchanges of offers. This regularly (although not always) leads to a resolution signed by both sides.
What makes a mediation work?
Mediations work best when the participants attack the problem instead of each other. A mediator helps the parties stay on task, in showing the other side what is really important, and getting the other side to see that point.
Mediations work well with and without lawyers, although everyone is strongly encouraged to have legal advise, and to work out with the lawyer who should be in the mediation room.
How do you get the other side to the mediation room?
The key to mediation is negotiation. Disputes are often at impasse because one or both sides do not see any advantage in moving. They expect to be bullied or manipulated or avoided if they show their hand. But when each side enters into a negotiation exercise that has an established track record of resolving most cases, each side then sees the advantage moving past stalemate into a healthy negotiation.
If this interests you, you might:
1. Refer your lawyer, or client, or the other side to this web page.
2. Email us at
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for an e-brochure that can be emailed to these other people.
3. Consider whether you have the legal entitlement to require the other side to attend at a mediation with you.
4. Ask someone at peacebuildermediation.com to talk to the other side and invite them into a mediation.
The links below will take you to British Columbia Mediators Roster, by visiting their site you will be able to read these relevant articles written Wayne Plenert with regard to Civil Mediation...
Transformation in Criminal and Personal Injury ADR: If They Can't Come, They Won't Be Transformed
(Paper presented for the core course, part-time LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution, Osgoode Hall Law School, January 2001)
Evaluation or Facilitation in Personal Injury Mediation
(Paper presented for the core course, part-time LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution, Osgoode Hall Law School, April 2001)
Personal Injury Mediation: A Clash of Two Systems
(Paper presented for the major research paper, part-time LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution, Osgoode Hall Law School, April 2002)
